Best Buy is threatening to sue a Catholic priest over his Beetle that reads "God Squad". Best Buy claims that violates its Geek Squad trademark. (Source: Flickr)

Best Buy accuses Catholic Priest of violating its trademark and Geek Squad look

Father
Luke Strand of the Holy Family
Parish in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, has a pretty interesting
ride. He drives around town in a black Volkswagen Beetle with a
logo featuring the phrase "God Squad" emblazoned on it.
That logo and the vehicle itself bear a striking similarity to the
mobile service vehicles of Best
Buy's service team, the Geek Squad.

Apparently, Best Buy
isn't pleased with its look being appropriated by this man of the
cloth. Lawyers for the electronics retailer sent Father
Strand a
cease-and-desist letter telling him to ditch the logo or
face consequences.

Father Strand mentioned the
letter at his Sunday Mass.

Speaking to the Fond
du Lac Reporter,
Father Strand defended the logo. He says he uses the logo as a
creative way to spur discussions and bring his faith to the
community.

Best Buy told reporters for the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel that
while it appreciates Father Strand's sentiments, it cannot stand by
and watch its trademarks be violated.

The legal dispute
revives a long ongoing question of just how much ownership to an icon
a company can claim. Apple, Inc., for example, has been
particularly zealous in legally assailing those who supposedly
violated its trademark. From New
York City to music
festivals, anyone who used the logo of an Apple -- or
particularly a logo of an Apple with a bite out of it -- was hit with
lawsuits or cease-and-desist letters.

Some
argue that companies are taking trademark enforcement to far;
corporate lawyers would obviously disagree.

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The Holocaust accusations were not made by myself, I have no idea aside from the fact that some priests, especially in France, were complicit to a degree. However you may wish to look at the role the Catholic's played in Franco's Spain for clearer connections to modern atrocities. Read the link here for more info:(apparantly this is the link its flagging as spam, complete the address on your own) countrystudies.us/spain/22.htm

I never said the church is inherantly evil, that is an attempt to mischaractorize my argument. I am a Christian myself, obviously I feel the faith does good work. However many of its members are perfectly willing to condemn extremists in other faiths, while ignoring extremists of our own faith. The proper response to this can be found in Matthew 7:

quote: 1“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

So because a few crazy people acting in the name of the church exist, that makes the whole church bad huh?

So how about the millions they've given food, clothes and shelter to? The millions they've helped with their marriages? The millions they've given hope. Guess all that means nothing in the face of the few shameful acts of a minority.

And abstinence IS the only sure fire way not to get AIDS. Wearing it a condom does not 100% prevent AIDS. Now use of condoms should be taught in absence of abstinence. But a crazy guy thinking European countries are out to kill Africans off with AIDS in condoms is hardly a sign that the church is evil.

He isn't a crazy person. He is the Archbishop for Mozambique, a major African nation. Furthermore, if you know people who actually live there, they will tell you that the Catholic churches preach this in their sermons routinely, and even try to arrange protests at family planning centers. Whether or not you think he's crazy, what matters is what his illiterate followers think. Note that the Catholic church has done *nothing* to remove or discredit him, and he's been saying this for years now.

As for the millions they have given food shelter and clothes to, whats your point? That because they do good in some ways they must be absolved of something horribly evil they commit?

And its a far cry from saying "Abstinence is better" to go to "Condoms are soaked in HIV so that the colonialists can take control again".

I work for a major Jewish research center and I personally know dozens of scientists who are not catholic who work closely with the catholic church because many of the leaders in South America and Africa are so corrupt they take the medications and vaccines and sell them on the black market for their own profit. Many demand personal payment to institute vaccine programs, others are not really in charge at all and in at least 5 cases I personally know of millions of dollars of vaccines were left to rot when shipments got “lost”, mishandled or were simply abandoned. The sisters of charity have helped millions worldwide, working in some of the worst places on earth. I work with many people who have come from some of the most impoverished places in the world and would not be the successful bioresearchers they are today if it were not for the education they received from the Catholic Church. From a biological point of view abstainence IS better than a condom but that is really not a practical view. People should know that condoms are only 98% effective at preventing pregnancy if used correctly; a sperm is more than 400X the size of the aids virus. There is a 3-5% production failure rate in the best of circumstances, no condom company tests for viral exclusion, and latex becomes fragile and porous with age. Of course we all know that only latex condoms help with the prevention of disease, natural ones are totally useless. It’s MUCH better to use condoms but no one should think it is in any way a guarantee of protection from viral diseases.

Fantastic. Be that as it may, how does that excuse the fact that condoms are actually wonderful at preventing HIV(the 'failure' ratio is usually due to the condom being improperly applied or breaking, not due to the size of sperm, or HIV, latex protects from the virus perfectly as long as there is no failure) and this archbishop is telling people that condoms give them HIV?

Yes its wonderful that the church is sometimes less corrupt than the government. But no one is contending that fact. The governments in Africa are horribly corrupt, they are often complicit in the HIV epidemic(as witnessed by South Africa's goverment's attempts to treat it with tribal medicine), but that does not somehow refute the point that the church is directly contributing to the death of its members by lying about the role of contraception in preventing HIV infections, and that by so doing millions are dying.

"Game reviewers fought each other to write the most glowing coverage possible for the powerhouse Sony, MS systems. Reviewers flipped coins to see who would review the Nintendo Wii. The losers got stuck with the job." -- Andy Marken